The constantly changing world of iPhones and tablets allowing text messaging and emails has altered the way people communicate.

In true Star Trekkian fashion, only a thumb-full of words clicked on a microscopic keyboard has replaced the millennia-old form of communication: the handwritten letter.

The written word, which seemed good enough for God, who etched the Ten Commandments on stone tablets, now has taken a subservient role in the way ideas and information are exchanged.

Written communication — and by that I mean handwritten, on paper, with a pencil or pen, quill or charcoal stick, or even fingers dipped in berry juice — is vanishing before our eyes.

I recently took a little impromptu survey, asking people if they recall the last time they wrote a personal letter in longhand, or received one, and the answer was unanimous.

They can’t recall.

Several younger souls have admitted they never have written anything longer than a few notes in school and afterward found it difficult to read.

I’ve also asked around and am assured that our elementary school teachers still spend time teaching our youngsters how to write on paper with a pencil. There continues to be effort invested in showing how cursive writing is done. I am skeptical that there is as much time spent on that endeavor as in the past, when I learned how to write.

Those of a certain age can relate to having spent hours and hours, days and weeks, at home and in the classroom, trying to duplicate the magnificently clear swirls, dips, loops, curls, slashes, dots and dashes that proper penmanship demanded.

We can recall teachers, armed with rulers, who would whack the knuckles of certain students (almost always boys) who scrawled out sloppy lines.

I can still hear that question ringing in my ears and cringe recalling the moment that the ruler clutched in her fist came whistling through the air in its downward arc. It was incentive enough to practice more long hours until that question was posed to some other poor soul and not in my direction. As it turned out, my handwriting became quite legible.

The problem is that after spending the better part of my early school-age years learning how to write longhand, I no longer use it.

Oh, it came in pretty handy in my life as a newspaper reporter as I resisted joining many of my colleagues who resorted to using tape recorders. Now, of course, tape recorders are museum pieces, replaced by the ever-popular, hand-held phone.

The handwritten letter has plummeted to the point of extinction. Since so few people are sending letters and cards by mail, the U.S. Postal Service is planning to shrink home delivery of mail to five days and raise the cost of first-class postage.

Many people don’t know it, but letter writing is an art form. People sit down and write out their thoughts on paper with a pen and ink. They consider their words and then draw them, much like an artist sketches a subject. It is talking through pen strokes. When done, the paper is neatly folded and placed in an envelope and again the pen directs the missive to its proper destination and the government guarantees that it will be delivered if a postage stamp in the proper denomination is placed on the envelope.

The entire endeavor of sending such a communication is about 50 cents. AT&T charges 45 cents for a few thumb-stroked words on a cell (unless you are on a monthly and costly plan).

Getting a letter in the mail is equally wonderful. You can sit down with a cup of coffee and read what your friend or relative has to say, noting how much effort that person took to place those words on the sheet of paper. Of course, once done, you save the letter so you can “answer” it by writing one of your own in reply.

These letters can go back and forth over time, which is called “carrying on a correspondence,” which seems to have much more substance than a few thumb-tapped, pidgin-English words tapped into a little box.